“With a deft touch and lively spirit, Eric Clayton has written nothing less than a vibrant screenplay for the spiritual life. This book addresses the imagination, stirs the heart, and invites one to undertake a pilgrimage that has the potential to change one’s life. Clayton proves himself a worthy apprentice to Obi-Wan Kenobi: With this book, he empowers readers to take their ‘first steps into a larger world’ where they may encounter Christ in the most unexpected places.” —Fr. Ryan Duns, SJ, professor and author of Theology of Horror: The Hidden Depths of Popular Films
~ “If you want to “get” speculative storytelling—fantasy, science fiction, and the like—you have to dwell with it. You have to inhabit the world being presented to you. You have to let it wash over you, so that you see the world through the eyes of your favorite author or moviemaker or storyteller. The same, it turns out, goes for the spiritual life, and for the kind of attitude we must cultivate if we are to perceive in creation the imaginative hand of its Author. Eric Clayton has dwelt with both speculative storytelling and the spiritual life. In Where Wonder Leads, he shows us how the imagination we cultivate through storytelling can enrich our spiritual lives. And then, just as any good storyteller or spiritual guide does, he invites us into the adventure.” —Joseph M. Vukov, PhD, Associate Director, The Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage
~ “Clayton’s book is a loving invitation to remember that the movements of the Holy Spirit are always more dynamic and inviting than we can imagine—and indeed it may be through the extraordinary God-given gift of our imaginations that we are best able to feel them transform us.” —Susan Haarman, PhD, Director of Campus Partnerships, Interfaith America, and author of Roll for Discernment: Dungeon Master as St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Director.
~
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“As kids, we all knew, deep down, that we were destined to be heroes. We fought dragons, saw magic in every corner of God’s world, and wondered, “Does Dad believe in fairies, too?” Eric Clayton’s Where Wonder Leads guides the reader back to those heroic moments of childhood through the imagination, exploring the richness of fairyland, to enrich our souls once more.” —Rose John Sheffler, author, Past Watchful Dragons: Biblical Stories Retold
~ “The constant yearning of our soul is to find deep and purposeful spiritual meaning to our life. Eric Clayton tells us how, shows us how, and then leads us on the way. This book is the map, the sign, the path, and the guide. But this book is no simple step-by-step, just add water, guide of exercises of the Ignatian Way. Clayton is a poet, and this book is an adventure into the hinterland of Faerie. But Clayton is also a prophet, who uses Ignatius to call us to ourselves and to God, demonstrating how to take the imagination of The Good, make it tangible, and begin to change not only our world, but the entire world. This is the book I have needed to read—and wished I could have written.” —Sonya Shetty Cronin, PhD, Florida State University Department of Religion & International Programs, Executive Director of The Carrier Pigeon Post
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ERIC A. CLAYTON
Where Wonder Leads FINDING GOD Through FAIRY TALES, MYTH, and CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER
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Copyright © 2026 Eric A. Clayton All rights reserved. Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, DC, and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. Cover art: user135743/iStock/Getty Images, Pablo Ramon de Lima Pinheiro/iStock/Getty Image Interior art: user135743/iStock/Getty Images, aleksandarvelasevic/DigitalVision Vectors/ Getty Images, Alhontess/iStock/Getty Images, Pablo Ramon de Lima Pinheiro/iStock/ Getty Images, oixxo/iStock/Getty Images Author photo: Allison Clayton ISBN: 978-0-8294-6065-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2026940152 Published in Chicago, IL Printed in Canada 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 MQS 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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For anyone who has ever wondered if wondering is a worthy prayer. May this book be an affirmation.
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C on te n ts Introduction .......................................................................................xiii Pray-er Worksheet: Reflecting on Character ............................. xvii
PART I THE FRAMING Chapter One A Catholic Imagination in Speculative Storytelling....................................................................3 Chapter Two The Spirituality of Worldbuilding...........................13 Chapter Three The Art of Rereading and Contemplation...........27
PART II THE ADVENTURE The First Contemplation The Wizard, or, The One Who Issues the Call................................35 The Second Contemplation The Walking Stick, or, The Tool That Keeps Us Going..................41 The Third Contemplation The Company, or, The Friends You Need Along the Way.............45 The Fourth Contemplation The Magic Stones, or, The Reminder That There’s More Than Meets the Eye........................................................................................49 The Fifth Contemplation The Familiar, or, Embracing the Spirit Guide.................................55 The Sixth Contemplation The Fairies, or, Paying Attention to the Magic All Around..........61 ✳ ix ✳
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The Seventh Contemplation The Pixies, or, Remembering the Mischief of the World...............67 The Eighth Contemplation The Forest, or, That Place Where We Get Knocked Around........73 The Ninth Contemplation The Genius Loci, or, What We Owe the Place.................................79 The Tenth Contemplation The Centaur, or, Beyond Our Usual Expectations..........................85 The Eleventh Contemplation The Elves, or, The Perfection We Seek..............................................91 The Twelfth Contemplation The Feast, or, The Place Where All Are Welcome..........................97 The Thirteenth Contemplation The Bard, or, The One Who Reminds Us of Our Legacy.............103 The Fourteenth Contemplation The Winged Terror, or, When Anger Overwhelms......................109 The Fifteenth Contemplation The Shadow, or, That Which Covers Us in Darkness...................115 The Sixteenth Contemplation The Sword, or, That Which Cuts Both Ways.................................119 The Seventeenth Contemplation The Vision, or, When the Spiritual and Temporal Meet..............125 The Eighteenth Contemplation The Words of Power, or, Why Bother with a Blessing..................131 The Nineteenth Contemplation The Minotaur, or, The Maze That Traps Us...................................137 The Twentieth Contemplation The Cave, or, Facing Our Shadow Selves........................................143 The Twenty-First Contemplation The Undead, or, Our Necessary Reminder....................................149
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Contents
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The Twenty-Second Contemplation The Djinn, or, Why We Can’t Rely Solely on Wishes...................155 The Twenty-Third Contemplation The Witches, or, Spiritual Experiences We Don’t Understand......161 The Twenty-Fourth Contemplation The Stars, or, The Vastness of Mystery...........................................167 The Twenty-Fifth Contemplation The Goddess Revealed, or, The Divine Reflection........................173 The Twenty-Sixth Contemplation The Unicorn, or, The Glimmer of Hope.........................................179 The Twenty-Seventh Contemplation The Knight, or, The Dualistic Trap.................................................183 The Twenty-Eighth Contemplation The Dragon, or, Befriending Our Inner Beast...............................189 The Twenty-Ninth Contemplation The Battle, or, The Discomfort We Have with Peace....................195 The Thirtieth Contemplation The Orc, or, What to Do with the Unredeemable.........................199 The Thirty-First Contemplation The Castle, or, Where the Power Really Lies................................ 205 The Thirty-Second Contemplation The Talisman, or, That Which We Imbue with Value..................211 The Thirty-Third Contemplation The Phoenix, or, The Spiritual Burn...............................................217 The Thirty-Fourth Contemplation The Return, or, The Inevitable Ending...........................................223 The Thirty-Fifth Contemplation The Mage, or, The Role You Play in the Sequel.............................229
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PART III TOOLS FOR SHARING Appendix I Questions for Reflection............................................239 Appendix II Formatting a Retreat or Workshop........................ 243 Appendix III Activities for Retreats, Classrooms, and Small Groups.............................................................................. 249 Appendix IV For Families..............................................................253 Endnotes .............................................................................................257 Acknowledgments .............................................................................259 About the Author ..............................................................................261
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Introduction This book is a call to adventure. It’s also an invitation to a profound experience of prayer. What you hold in your hands was written to nourish, sustain, and affirm your imagination as a pathway to that which is holy, sacred, and mystical. But in these spiritual hinterlands, it’s always wise to have a guide to accompany you along the way. And so, think of this book as a travel companion through the fantastical realms of myth and wonder. Through thirty-five guided meditations rooted in the Catholic (and, in particular, the Ignatian) tradition, this book will challenge you to step into a larger world, to imagine yourself assuming the role of the epic hero, and to reflect upon what such responsibility demands of you, as well as what it reveals about your truest self. Why guided meditations? Because through them, you exercise that crucial tool of prayer and reflection: the imagination. Through our imagination, we enter into dialogue with our God who has great dreams for us, dreams we may not yet fully see but that unfold, often and at first in hidden places, in our lives. How can we begin to envision what we do not completely understand? Only through the imagination. This is where we encounter the living God. This book is for anyone who has ever found more spiritual truth in fairy tales than in a sermon; for those who pray better with stories than with syllabi; for those who make pilgrimages to the Renaissance Faire just as frequently as to shrines and grottos; for seekers and skeptics who suspect that our imaginations were always meant to point us back to God. This book was written so that you ✳ xiii ✳
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might rediscover enchantment in your prayer life by engaging with the symbols, creatures, and themes of fantasy literature, pop culture, movies, fairy tales, myth, and more. Whether it’s a wizard on your doorstep or a walking stick left behind, these tropes and archetypes hold spiritual insights. This book will help you pray, reflect, and imagine your way toward a deeper encounter with grace in a unique way, one that engages your imagination along the essential path you’ve been invited to embark on. In part I, I provide three essays to set the stage for our adventure. In part II, you’ll find the contemplative guided meditations— go ahead and jump to page 33 if you want to get started! These contemplations can be read at your own pace, either in a retreat setting or prayed daily. Each presents a stereotypical fantasy motif. Perhaps you’re the one who is greeted by the wizard, or perhaps you’re the one who is tempted to slay a captured orc. How do you respond? Every contemplation is broken into three parts: • Step into adventure invites you to imagine yourself in the story, engaging with fantasy motifs as though you were a character in the tale. What do you see and feel in these moments? How does this fantastical encounter resonate with your innermost self? • Turn to the ordinary provides a brief essay in which I share reflections and lessons that relate the spiritual themes of each contemplation to my own life. This is an opportunity for you to consider how these mythic motifs are unfolding in your daily life.
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Introduction
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• Cross the threshold is an opportunity to harmonize the first and second parts. Return to the second-person guided meditation newly informed by how your ordinary daily life is illuminated by these fantastical themes. How does a return to the story invite you to carry these mythic motifs into your life and community? There is more than one way to navigate these pages. This book can be read straight through as you might read a fantasy novel. It can be prayed with daily as part of your reflective practice. It can be grappled with communally on retreat. (Check out the appendices in part III for ideas and activities to use in the classroom, on retreat, with your family, and more!) But regardless of your approach, remember that this is an adventure into prayer—a journey that you can make again and again. Each time you embark on this road, you are necessarily different. Your own context changes; your own experiences continue to unfold. And so, begin by reflecting on who you are today, now, at this very moment. Who is this character (you!) that is about to set off on a thrilling quest? What is this character (you!) hoping to find? And how will this character (you!) be changed by the road ahead? Let’s begin.
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Pray-er Worksheet: Reflecting on Character I am _________________________________________________, and my adventure begins on ______________________________.
What is the grace you seek from this adventure? Humility? Understanding of purpose? Strength to make a big decision?
What are your strengths?
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What opportunities for growth stretch out before you?
Is there a holy or wise person, living or deceased, you turn to for guidance in your life? What actions can you take from their insights?
What spiritual tools do you carry on this journey? Your rosary? Prayer cards? Icons? Miraculous medals?
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Pray-er Worksheet: Reflecting on Character
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What was your previous spiritual journey? Was it made during a pilgrimage? A retreat? Reading a book that really spoke to you?
What insights did you acquire on that journey that can be brought along on this adventure?
What words of power might you invoke as you set off? Write your prayer to guide you through your journey.
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PA RT I
The Framing
As we set out upon our chosen path, we are guided by a simple yet all-encompassing question: Why? There are countless ways to encounter God; why should we spend time chasing the Sacred by way of the Fantastical? And why do so using tools and traditions of Catholic spirituality? Most important, why do we feel this call? In these opening three chapters, I invite you to sink into these questions, and allow the essays that follow to frame your own thinking. The frame is important: It dictates what we ultimately are able to see. And so, as we take our first steps into the world of Fairie, be mindful of your why—and of the questions that can expand your reframed vision.
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CHAPTER ONE
A Catholic Imagination in Speculative Storytelling
T
he fairy garden is in disarray. Wind and rain have battered the tiny painted structures. The fairy houses stand nestled on a rock in the shadow of a tall crepe myrtle from which a flurry of pink petals has fallen. They’re dead now—brown, decaying, clumpy. The little structures themselves are faded: Bright reds have become pale pinks; highlight yellows have turned nearly white. The inhabitants of this small landscape-bound community are in no better shape. The gnomes have been toppled; the fairies are on their sides. Even the dragon, tasked with protecting the small village, has succumbed to the wind. The great pink creature faces a completely arbitrary direction, offering hardly any protection. “Will you help me fix it?” My eldest daughter stands with her hands on her hips, curls tumbling about her shoulders. “We can’t leave the fairy garden like that.” I purse my lips, rub the back of my neck. I have other things to do. These are her toys after all. “You can do it,” I say. “I can’t,” she insists. “I need your help. The fairies will never come if the fairy garden looks like that.” She’s got a point. “Fine. Show me what you need.”
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For the next twenty minutes, I squat alongside Elianna, carefully taking each of the fairy garden pieces in one hand and rinsing them off with the hose I hold in the other. There are too many spider webs, Elianna insists. We need to get rid of those. Camira— my youngest—concurs. “Aren’t spiders good for a fairy garden?” I ask. “Same size and all, right?” I’m a fool. Spiders are not good for a fairy garden. No speck of web nor wayward piece of dirt will be tolerated. I suppose the fairies could get stuck in the web, eaten by the spider. Perhaps I’m not thinking this all the way through. I wash off each individual piece—the little people, the little homes, the little chairs and table—and then turn my hose on the rock. “You missed some bird poop,” Elianna says, pointing. I say she can hose the rock off herself if she’s going to be so picky. “I think we need a second rock,” she says instead, once the first is clear and clean. “The fairies need more room.” I can’t say I disagree. I haul another flat piece of stone over and lay it next to the first, still nestled in the shadow of the crepe myrtle. “We can use this bridge to connect the two,” I say, proffering one of the now-clean fairy garden pieces. Elianna nods. Like that was the most obvious statement in the world. We proceed to rebuild the fairy garden, placing each denizen of the village and miniature structure in its proper location. When the work is done, we stand back and admire this piece of fairyland that sits snugly in our front yard. “The fairies are going to like this,” Elianna says with a grin. I nod, smile back. I believe they will. And I still have time to mow the lawn. But I’m glad that I’ve taken the time to rebuild this little fairy-tale village. And why?
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A Catholic Imagination in Speculative Storytelling
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This was more than a half-decent attempt at parenting. I’ve replied to my kids’ requests for crafts and games with a confident “No” on plenty of occasions. After all, how else would the lawn ever get mowed? But this was different. The fairy garden isn’t just a game, though it is that and more. It isn’t just an outdoor craft, though art and color abound. Sitting with my daughters in the mud and the mulch, propping up fading fairy-tale creatures was something else entirely. This was an affirmation of imagination, the participation in its upkeep and refueling. This was a near-mystical experience, a huddling together at a gateway that opens not simply into our front yard but also into the land of Faerie, a land of elves and wizards, of talking trees and wise wolves. This was a father and his children daring to partake in something beyond our knowing, beyond the seen and the understood, something that points to a world that transcends the one we inhabit, a world of myth and magic and unbound possibility. This was a near religious experience. As a Catholic who is deeply formed by a Catholic imagination—which, in the words of Fr. Andrew Greeley, “sees created reality as a ‘sacrament,’ that is, a revelation of the presence of God”—I am always ready and eager to see in the ordinary materials of our days something more, something other, something mystical.1 We did not bless ourselves or recite well-worn prayers. We held no rosary beads and found no holy water. And yet, we still oriented our minds and hearts in the direction of mystery. In the humble offering of hand-painted figurines and dying flower petals, we once more affirmed that creation is vast and beyond our wildest imaginings, that it is dripping with the sacred. In the humdrum preparation of a fairy garden and the hope-filled wondering that such magical creatures might pay our home a visit, we dared
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imagine that which we’ve never truly seen. We prepared a space for those unknown visitors, and in so doing, tilled the soil of our imagination to look for and expect not fairies but God’s own self. This is the foundation of a sacramental imagination, one that sees the ordinary raw material of our days as graced, as pulsing with potential, as pointing beyond the known and piercing the veil into the sacred. I desperately want this for my daughters. I want it for myself, too. I want to nourish it, share it, watch it grow and flourish. For me, this sort of imagination is fed in the lands of Middle-earth, Westeros, and Narnia, around a game table cluttered with cards and dice and handwritten notes, through the wielding of swords with names and the casting of spells meant to elevate the good and the beautiful. This sort of imagination makes room for a God that is far greater than we know, far beyond what our human minds can conjure, and yet intimately present in our mundane, nitty-gritty lives. This sort of imagination seeks after this wild and mysterious God, looking for clues, for breadcrumbs, for hidden thresholds across which God’s Spirit calls, invites, whispers. This sort of imagination is humbly offered to the Creator, who wishes to use the raw material of our curiosities, wonderings, and awe to make manifest something fantastical.
A Jesuit, a Psychologist, and a Professor Walk into a Fairy Tale Have you ever wondered why these worlds of legend and lore call to you? Why at times they feel more real and relevant than even the most respected literary novels? Why they resonate with your own spiritual seeking in ways that you can’t quite put a finger on? I have.
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These questions have burned in my heart since I was a child. Now, I watch those same flames flicker to life in my own children. Where did these questions come from? I know where my girls have learned about fairy-tale creatures. We’ve watched plenty of Disney movies together. We’ve read fantastical stories before bedtime. And I’ve observed the games they play with their friends. I am well familiar with the source material that has planted the seed of myth and magic in their little heads. But what about that very first person for whom the notion of a fairy was radical and novel and unheard of? Think for a moment on those early pioneers to the land of Faerie: the ones who didn’t have access to the Disney vault of fairy-tale films; who came long before a hobbit trekked into unknown lands with a pesky piece of jewelry; who were born even before those gods of Nordic, Roman, and Greek mythology, before Thor and Zeus and Mars. Ponder the dreamers whose imaginations first thought, Might there be strange and mysterious Others among us, here yet beyond our vision, hidden yet real and present? Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist who revolutionized how we think about the human psyche, had a lot to say about myth and its place in our minds and culture. To start, Jung claims that humans could not have invented the ideas of gods and mythic creatures. Rather, these ideas are bound up in who we are, in how we are made. These stories we tell and parallels we draw by observing the natural world are simply the manifestation of what we already have buried within us. We don’t dream up a sun god by observing the sun; something within us already knows the Divine, and the sun simply calls to mind that truth. “Humans can only project onto the world gods already in their minds,” mythology scholar Robert A. Segal writes of Jung’s thinking.2 “Jung contends that everyone is born not merely with a need of some kind that the invention of
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myth fulfills but with myths themselves.”3 For Jung, we are all born with the raw material of myth in our very DNA: “Myths are original revelations of the preconscious psyche, involuntary statements about unconscious psychic happenings.”4 And he claims that this impulse is present in the collective unconscious of everyone. For us people of faith, it makes sense to believe that God wove these stories within us. God continues to speak to us still through these stories, through the mythic structure alive within each person. Is that why the Christ story resonates so strongly? Not because we’ve made Jesus into a mythic hero but because the rhythm of myth is the natural way in which God desires to speak to us. And Jesus, in leaving his heavenly home, stepping into the proverbial unknown, descending into darkness, and rising once more with new wisdom to share with others, fulfills that story. The myths and the fantastical stories they tell us—the stories we tell through them—are already living within us. “Myths for moderns do not function to connect the inner world with the outer world, which remains impersonal and mechanical,” Segal writes. “Instead, modern myths function to connect—better, to reconnect—moderns to the inner world.”5 The power of myth, then, is to reconnect us to the great Mythmaker, the one who has planted myth within each of us and yearns to see it lived out. French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “The deeper I descend into myself, the more I find God at the heart of my being; the more I multiply the links that attach me to things, the more closely does he hold me—the God who pursues in me the task, as endless as the whole sum of centuries, of the incarnation of his Son.”6 God has placed myth and fantasy within us already; as we pull on these threads of story, we come to know God more deeply and discover what God desires of us in our very real lives. As we plumb the depths of the story within us, we quite literally come to better understand our God and our part in God’s story.
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In his delightful graphic novel, The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien, John Hendrix drops us into the moment when Professor Tolkien illuminates for Lewis the importance of myth to understanding the Christian life: “Christ is the myth that entered history,” Tolkien proclaims. “He is the myth that actually came true. All the ancient myths are the refraction and splintering of God’s true white light into the many colors we see throughout the world. We write myths because our hearts were written by a mythmaker.”7 We are made in the image and likeness of this Great Mythmaker. We write myths because there is more story to be told. Jung sees in Jesus Christ a full realization of the heroic archetype: “But the ordinary man, too, unconsciously lives the archetypal forms.” He continues, “What happens in the life of Christ happens always and everywhere.”8 Jesus tells us he is the way; we know we are called to follow him. Each of us is Christ present in the world. But have we ever truly considered that deep within our own stories is the story of Christ being written anew? That God speaks into our world through this same, all-encompassing mythic story? Still, it can be tempting to dismiss fantasy, fairy tales, and myth. These stories don’t deal with real life, right? They’re focused on the magical, the fantastical, and the epic, never on the humdrum and the ordinary. But if what we’ve been reflecting on thus far is true, these stories may actually touch more deeply upon real life than other tales. “Fairy-stories deal largely, or (the better ones) mainly, with simple or fundamental things,” Tolkien writes. But it’s precisely because our ordinary world is, as Tolkien sees it, “untouched by Fantasy” that the casting of our real lives into imaginary lands makes them “all the more luminous by their setting.”9
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By entering the realm of Faerie, we see and understand our present lives with a nuance found nowhere else. Do the exaggerated stereotypes so often encountered in speculative storytelling help us better wrestle with and make sense of the myriad parts of our own inner lives? Consider Star Trek. Vulcans are simply human beings taken to an extreme—what if we allowed ourselves to be fully governed by logic with no credence given to emotion? Klingons are similar—what if our entire culture was centered on violence as a virtue? At first glance, these aliens seem foreign, but upon deeper reflection, we realize they are like funhouse mirrors held up to reflect certain aspects of our very selves. What do they reveal? There are other parts, too, for us to consider: the part of the hero, the part of the wizard, the part of the dragon, the part of the bard. Hold these archetypical characters up and see what they reveal within you. But there’s more reason to linger in Faerie. Tolkien insists that fairy-stories are marked by what he calls a eucatastrophe, or the very opposite of a catastrophe. It’s “the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous ‘turn.’” This word, “turn,” is important to Tolkien because, like in real life, a good fairy-story has no conclusion. The story continues to unfold. It’s not the end we’re talking about but a new moment of significance. So, this idea of turning toward the sudden goodness of life, the surprising intervention of mystery and wonder, is essential. “In its fairy-tale—or otherworld—setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur.” Tolkien goes on to say that this intervention of grace is not to suggest there is an absence of “sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance.” But this turning toward grace—or the hope thereof—is “a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”10
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Grace, after all, is a gift freely given, a sharing in God’s mercy, compassion, and love. Like a flock of enormous eagles suddenly there to save the day, or a sorcerer who appears from nowhere to momentarily hold back the advancing darkness, the gift of grace arrives quite unexpectedly. But then the narrative reins are handed back to our heroes—back to us—and we continue on. This isn’t just fiction; this is God at work in our real lives! The Holy Spirit intervenes when we least expect it. How will we rise to the moment? How will we collaborate with grace when it touches us in our stories? Too often, our language for the spiritual fails us; we get bogged down in religious dogma, assumptions, and assignments that we think we understand—or at least, should pretend to understand. Our spiritual lives are reduced to half-hearted lessons, poorly memorized lines, and forgotten catechesis. Consequently, our spiritual journeys falter. We miss the moment of grace. Maybe that’s why I turn again and again to the fantastical as fuel for the spiritual journey, as a way to conjure raw material for the imagination, as a gateway into a much-needed retreat of grace and self-discovery. C. S. Lewis did the same: “Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings.” He goes on: “The whole subject [of faith] was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school association, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency?”11 And so, in these pages, we set out to cast our ordinary lives into an imaginary world so as to wrestle with the power and potential of our quite extraordinary selves. The speculative meets
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Where Wonder Leads
the spiritual because I believe praying with these stories—in fact, putting ourselves into the stories and allowing those fantastical motifs to saturate our own daily joys and sorrows—will prove transformative.
“Far from being untruths, myths have traditionally been forefront in the shaping of human beings,” writes renowned mythographer and Christian thinker Martin Shaw. “They show us what to defend, what to care about, the need for pluck, sacrifice, and generosity. In the writ-largeness of their narratives we can locate our own stories, like a river finding the sea.”12 Shaw is convinced that myths are meant to mature us, to make us more fully human. Are we creating new myths? Or are we remembering the fantastical that has always been waiting within us? I believe it’s the latter. And I believe that by spending time pondering these fantastical tropes, we better understand both who we are and whose we are. We discover our own stories, and we discover the Great Storyteller. Who was the first person to dream up a fairy? I can’t say. But I can say that the same mythic raw material exists in our own lives, that these creatures of legend and tales of old continue to matter because they continue to reflect deep truths about who we are, and where we’re headed.
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